Statecraft Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Statecraft
Episode Title: Four Ways to Fix Government HR
Host: Santi (Santiago) Ruiz
Guest: Judge Glock, Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute
Date: August 21, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the persistent problems and potential reforms in federal government human resources, focusing on hiring, firing, pay, and the central tension between bureaucratic stability and managerial flexibility. Host Santi Ruiz interviews economic historian Judge Glock, whose research compares radical state-level reforms to the relatively stultified federal system. Together, they explore evidence, politics, and practical solutions for revitalizing civil service HR while preserving core values of professionalism and meritocracy.

Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Lessons from the States: Radical Reforms in Civil Service (01:29–06:26)

• States have enacted dramatic HR reforms since the 1990s, unlike the federal government:
  • Introduction of at-will employment for civil servants in states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona.
  • Removal of collective bargaining agreements.
  • Broad-banding in pay, giving managers more latitude to reward/penalize performance.
  • "As you mentioned, starting the 1990s, you had several states that went to basically complete at will employment." (Judge Glock, 02:55)
• Results: Mostly positive managerial surveys; little evidence of feared political patronage; states maintain strong administrative performance.
  • Notable finding: Only 5–10% of employees reported political influence in hiring even post-reform.
  • "We have very few reports of any concrete examples of politicization ... So, anyway, you have these absolutely radical civil service reforms. You have generally positive outcomes." (B, 05:37)
• Federal debate is much less ambitious: Changes popular in the states remain outside the Overton window in D.C.

2. The State of Evidence and Bipartisan History (06:26–12:42)

• Evidence on reforms: Strong case against collective bargaining; evidence on hiring/firing effectiveness is more survey-based, less airtight.
  • "The evidence on collective bargaining is pretty close to universal in that this raises costs, it reduces the efficiency of government." (B, 07:20)
• Historic bipartisanship: Carter-era and 1990s reforms at state and federal level were often bipartisan.
  • "Right. That's a Democratic president saying ... the civil service system has become a bureaucratic maze which neglects merit..." (A, 11:14)
• Bipartisanship has waned, though recent reforms (e.g., the “Chance to Compete Act”) show potential for cross-aisle collaboration.

3. The Federal Hiring Process: Problems and Peculiarities (12:42–23:49)

• Opaque, process-heavy system:
  • Resumes are filtered by HR, often using literal keyword searches.
    • "You're saying there's like a keyword search ... if they don't have the keywords, into the circular file as they used to say." (A and B, 15:48–16:54)
  • Applicant self-ratings, where exaggerating skills mechanically improves hiring odds.
    • "If you just check, you know, I'm 10 out of 10 on everything ... that improves my odds mechanically of being hired." (A, 16:54)
• Manager disempowerment: Hiring managers are often distanced from the screening process, cannot easily access applicant pools, stemming from anti-cronyism reforms.
  • "One of the very base-level reforms should be: how can we more clearly integrate the hiring manager with the evaluation process?" (B, 19:38)
• Excessive regulation: OPM’s 300-page hiring manual limits flexibility, with agencies coloring within the lines to avoid sanctions.

4. Federal Employee Pay & Advancement (24:01–31:19)

• Pay Classification Complexity:
  • Job slots defined by “Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families,” creating a dense, rigid pay schedule (GS levels, 10 steps per level).
  • Advancement based overwhelmingly on seniority, with rare, difficult-to-document merit raises.
    • "Not too much. For most people, the 10 steps inside each of your GSA level is basically just set by seniority." (B, 25:52)
• Broadbanding at states (and a few federal agencies) allows more discretion, but remains rare in D.C.
• Pay compression: Lower-tier federal jobs often overpaid compared to market; top-tier severely underpaid.
  • "The highest skilled people tend to be paid much less than the private sector and the lowest paid people tend to get paid much more." (B, 30:01)

5. Instability, Job Security, and Firing (31:19–44:22)

• Trade-off eroding: Traditional deal was job stability for lower pay; recent instability (waves of layoffs, difficulty raising top pay) threatens to repel top talent.
• Firing is arduous:
  • Two legal processes: Chapter 75 (misconduct), Chapter 43 (performance, requires documentation, PIPs, appeals).
  • Multiple appeals: Union arbitration → Merit Systems Protection Board → Courts.
    • "The number of people who win at the Merit System Protection board is still 20–30%. If you're part of a collective bargaining agreement ... those are even more, I think you're about 50/50 to win on those." (B, 41:44)
  • Managers often resort to isolating poor performers in undesirable roles, rather than firing.

6. Public Sector Unions: Brief and Contentious History (44:22–49:58)

• Collective bargaining in the federal workforce is a post-1978 phenomenon.
• Recent executive actions: Trump administration declared large swaths of jobs (esp. national security-related) exempt from collective bargaining; courts have so far permitted these moves.
  • "Trump and the OPM has basically said most of the positions in the federal government are national security related positions ... off limits to collective bargaining." (B, 45:31)
• Extreme union agreements can stymie management (case study: TSA, VA).
  • Notable VA reforms followed public scandals over falsified wait lists and veteran deaths.

7. Contractors and Civil Service: A Delicate Balance (49:58–56:06)

• Contracting out is integral & growing: Big Clinton-era reforms shrank formal civil service but fueled a ballooning contractor workforce; today, ~10% of the US economy flows through government contracts.
  • "One of the reforms ... was that, hey, we just need to give a lot more authority, these people to just take a credit card and go out and buy ..." (B, 53:30)
• Quality hinges on effective contract management: Discretion for contracting officers is crucial—but process and oversight can become as sclerotic as direct hiring.
• Counterintuitive lesson: The more nitpicking and process imposed on managers/contracting, the less nimble and responsive the system becomes.

8. Decentralization: The Central Reform Proposal (56:27–59:56)

• Host and guest agree: Lasting improvement requires trusting local managers, decentralizing authority for hiring, evaluation, and contracting.
  • "In both the contracting civil service sphere, the goal for the kind of central agencies should be giving as many options as possible to the local managers, making sure they don't go extremely off the rails, but then giving those ... the ability to make their own choices." (B, 56:27)
• **Central agencies (OPM, GSA, etc.) should be optional resources—not bottlenecks or gatekeepers.
• Beware ‘residency’ and ‘Buy Local’ rules: Good politics, bad procurement.

9. Looking Forward: What Should the Administration Do? (60:11–62:35)

• Judge Glock's Recommendations:
  • Avoid broad, indiscriminate layoffs—target based on performance, not seniority.
  • Advance Schedule F/“policy career” track: At-will removal for policy roles, but still merit-hiring to avoid cronyism.
  • Promote decentralization: OPM should recast itself as a support resource.
  • Fully implement bipartisan “Chance to Compete Act”—subject-matter experts, manager discretion in hiring.
    • "The ideal system ... is to really have a decentralization of hiring authority to individual managers, which means the OPM really saying ... 'We’re going to trust you to do that, including hiring.'” (B, 61:18)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On State-level Radicalism:
  "The reforms in these states was just incredibly radical ... (In DC) we're talking about very marginal changes to hiring and firing. That seems extreme." (B, 03:05)
• On Evidence for Reform:
  "The sky is not going to fall, which I think is a very important baseline assumption here." (B, 08:31)
• On Contradictions in Federal HR:
  "If you just check, 'I'm 10 out of 10 on everything,' that improves my odds, you know, mechanically of being hired." (A, 16:54)
• On Pay Compression:
  "Your average federal employee is probably overpaid relative to the private sector. But that's ... because the lowest skilled employees are paid way higher ... and the highest paid ... much less." (B, 30:01)
• On Contracting and Decentralization:
  "If you make the civil service more stultified, you're going to have to contract stuff out ... The goal should be setting clear goals ... and then giving that person or contractor the discretion to meet them." (B, 54:17)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• 01:29 – State civil service reforms overview
• 06:26 – The evidence base and historical bipartisanship
• 12:42 – Federal hiring process: why it’s broken
• 24:01 – Pay schedules and their limitations
• 31:19 – Pay compression and the consequences for recruitment/retention
• 37:02 – How hard is it to fire a federal employee?
• 44:22 – Public sector unions—origins and current challenges
• 49:58 – Contractors: the expanding “shadow workforce”
• 56:27 – Decentralization as the core reform philosophy
• 60:11 – Glock’s recommendations to the administration

Final Thoughts

Statecraft's conversation provides a frank, often surprising look at how government HR got so tangled—and a roadmap for pragmatic, evidence-backed reform. Judge Glock repeatedly emphasizes decentralization and empowerment of managers, balanced by smart oversight, as essential for attracting (and keeping) top public sector talent. The states’ boldness offers inspiration and warning alike for federal reformers.